Health and Healthcare

Is Regneron's COVID-19 Animal Study Giving More Creedence to Antibody Treatments?

Chris Lange

Published: August 4, 2020 11:22 am

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: REGN), one of the front-runners for the development of a COVID-19 treatment, released an update on its antibody drug combination on Monday. Essentially, the combination prevented and treated the disease in rhesus macaques and hamsters in an animal study.

The update said that this animal study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, demonstrated the cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies was able to “almost completely block establishment of virus infection.”

Overall the results matched or exceeded the effects recently demonstrated in animal studies of vaccine candidates. In a second study, Regeneron said the cocktail also was able to minimize infection when animals were infected with a much higher level of the virus. The correlation drawn here was that the prophylactic effect was greatly diminished with a lower dose of the drug.

The takeaway here is that the animals infected and then treated with the antibodies cleared the virus much faster than those only given the placebo.

The studies included 36 rhesus macaques and 50 hamsters. Note that while positive results are great in animals, it is no clear indication of the efficacy in humans.

Regeneron already has initiated late-stage clinical trials in humans to assess the efficacy of this antibody cocktail’s ability to prevent and then treat COVID-19.

Regeneron is scheduled to report its second-quarter results on Wednesday. Analysts expect $5.98 in earnings per share (EPS) and $1.74 billion in revenue. The same period of last year reportedly had $6.02 in EPS and $1.93 billion in revenue.

Regeneron stock traded down less than 1% at $640.88 on Tuesday, in a 52-week range of $271.37 to $664.64. The consensus price target is $643.83.